Kolkata doctor's rape and murder in hospital alarm India (2024)

Kolkata doctor's rape and murder in hospital alarm India (1)Kolkata doctor's rape and murder in hospital alarm India (2)Getty Images

Early on Friday morning, a 31-year-old female trainee doctor retired to sleep in a seminar hall after a gruelling day at one of India’s oldest hospitals.

It was the last time she was seen alive.

The next morning, her colleagues discovered her half-naked body on the podium, bearing extensive injuries. Police later arrested a hospital volunteer worker in connection with what they say is a case of rape and murder at Kolkata’s 138-year-old RG Kar Medical College.

Tens of thousands of women in Kolkata and across West Bengal state are expected to participate in a 'Reclaim the Night' march at midnight on Wednesday, demanding the "independence to live in freedom and without fear". The march takes place just before India's Independence Day on Thursday. Outraged doctors have struck work both in the city and across India, demanding a strict federal law to protect them.

The tragic incident has again cast a spotlight on the violence against doctors and nurses in the country. Reports of doctors, regardless of gender, being assaulted by patients and their relatives have gained widespread attention. Women - who make up nearly 30% of India’s doctors and 80% of the nursing staff - are more vulnerable than their male colleagues.

The crime in the Kolkata hospital last week exposed the alarming security risks faced by the medical staff in many of India's state-run health facilities.

Kolkata doctor's rape and murder in hospital alarm India (3)Kolkata doctor's rape and murder in hospital alarm India (4)Getty Images

At RG Kar Hospital, which sees over 3,500 patients daily, the overworked trainee doctors - some working up to 36 hours straight - had no designated rest rooms, forcing them to seek rest in a third-floor seminar room.

Reports indicate that the arrested suspect, a volunteer worker with a troubled past, had unrestricted access to the ward and was captured on CCTV. Police allege that no background checks were conducted on the volunteer.

"The hospital has always been our first home; we only go home to rest. We never imagined it could be this unsafe. Now, after this incident, we're terrified," says Madhuparna Nandi, a junior doctor at Kolkata’s 76-year-old National Medical College.

Dr Nandi’s own journey highlights how female doctors in India's government hospitals have become resigned to working in conditions that compromise their security.

Kolkata doctor's rape and murder in hospital alarm India (5)Kolkata doctor's rape and murder in hospital alarm India (6)

At her hospital, where she is a resident in gynaecology and obstetrics, there are no designated rest rooms and separate toilets for female doctors.

“I use the patients’ or the nurses' toilets if they allow me. When I work late, I sometimes sleep in an empty patient bed in the ward or in a cramped waiting room with a bed and basin,” Dr Nandi told me.

She says she feels insecure even in the room where she rests after 24-hour shifts that start with outpatient duty and continue through ward rounds and maternity rooms.

One night in 2021, during the peak of the Covid pandemic, some men barged into her room and woke her by touching her, demanding, “Get up, get up. See our patient.”

“I was completely shaken by the incident. But we never imagined it would come to a point where a doctor could be raped and murdered in the hospital,” Dr Nandi says.

Kolkata doctor's rape and murder in hospital alarm India (7)Kolkata doctor's rape and murder in hospital alarm India (8)Getty Images

What happened on Friday was not an isolated incident. The most shocking case remains that of Aruna Shanbaug, a nurse at a prominent Mumbai hospital, who was left in a persistent vegetative state after being raped and strangled by a ward attendant in 1973. She died in 2015, after 42 years of severe brain damage and paralysis. More recently, in Kerala, Vandana Das, a 23-year-old medical intern, was fatally stabbed with surgical scissors by a drunken patient last year.

In overcrowded government hospitals with unrestricted access, doctors often face mob fury from patients' relatives after a death or over demands for immediate treatment. Kamna Kakkar, an anaesthetist, remembers a harrowing incident during a night shift in an intensive care unit (ICU) during the pandemic in 2021 at her hospital in Haryana in northern India.

“I was the lone doctor in the ICU when three men, flaunting a politician’s name, forced their way in, demanding a much in-demand controlled drug. I gave in to protect myself, knowing the safety of my patients was at stake," Dr Kakkar told me.

Namrata Mitra, a Kolkata-based pathologist who studied at the RG Kar Medical College, says her doctor father would often accompany her to work because she felt unsafe.

Kolkata doctor's rape and murder in hospital alarm India (9)Kolkata doctor's rape and murder in hospital alarm India (10)Getty Images

“During my on-call duty, I took my father with me. Everyone laughed, but I had to sleep in a room tucked away in a long, dark corridor with a locked iron gate that only the nurse could open if a patient arrived,” Dr Mitra wrote in a Facebook post over the weekend.

“I’m not ashamed to admit I was scared. What if someone from the ward - an attendant, or even a patient - tried something? I took advantage of the fact that my father was a doctor, but not everyone has that privilege.”

When she was working in a public health centre in a district in West Bengal, Dr Mitra spent nights in a dilapidated one-storey building that served as the doctor’s hostel.

“From dusk, a group of boys would gather around the house, making lewd comments as we went in and out for emergencies. They would ask us to check their blood pressure as an excuse to touch us and they would peek through the broken bathroom windows,” she wrote.

Years later, during an emergency shift at a government hospital, “a group of drunk men passed by me, creating a ruckus, and one of them even groped me”, Dr Mitra said. “When I tried to complain, I found the police officers dozing off with their guns in hand.”

Kolkata doctor's rape and murder in hospital alarm India (11)Kolkata doctor's rape and murder in hospital alarm India (12)Getty Images

Things have worsened over the years, says Saraswati Datta Bodhak, a pharmacologist at a government hospital in West Bengal's Bankura district. "Both my daughters are young doctors and they tell me that hospital campuses in the state are overrun by anti-social elements, drunks and touts," she says. Dr Bodhak recalls seeing a man with a gun roaming around a top government hospital in Kolkata during a visit.

India lacks a stringent federal law to protect healthcare workers. Although 25 states have some laws to prevent violence against them, convictions are “almost non-existent”, RV Asokan, president of the Indian Medical Association (IMA), an organisation of doctors, told me. A 2015 survey by IMA found that 75% of doctors in India have faced some form of violence at work. “Security in hospitals is almost absent,” he says. “One reason is that nobody thinks of hospitals as conflict zones.”

Some states like Haryana have deployed private bouncers to strengthen security at government hospitals. In 2022, the federal government asked the states to deploy trained security forces for sensitive hospitals, install CCTV cameras, set up quick reaction teams, restrict entry to "undesirable individuals" and file complaints against offenders. Nothing much has happened, clearly.

Even the protesting doctors don't seem to be very hopeful. “Nothing will change... The expectation will be that doctors should work round the clock and endure abuse as a norm,” says Dr Mitra. It is a disheartening thought.

Read more on this story:

Inside India's first heat stroke emergency room
India's Covid doctors demand action after attacks

Rape in India

Doctors

Kolkata

India

Kolkata doctor's rape and murder in hospital alarm India (2024)

FAQs

Who is the killer of Kolkata's doctor? ›

Her body was discovered on August 9. Sanjay Roy, a civic volunteer, has been arrested in relation to the case. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) will conduct a psychological assessment of Sanjay Roy, the accused in the rape and murder case of a doctor in Kolkata, officials told PTI.

What happened with Lady doctor in Kolkata? ›

The body of the 31-year-old postgraduate trainee doctor, who was allegedly raped and killed inside a seminar hall of the state-run hospital, was found on August 9. Roy, a civic volunteer, was arrested in this connection.

What is the Dr. case in Kolkata? ›

The CBI questioned R.G. Kar Medical College's former principal Dr. Sandip Ghosh and summoned a house staff member and two post-graduate trainees. West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on August 16 led a rally demanding death penalty for the main accused in the rape and murder of a doctor at Kolkata's R.G.

What is the case of RG Kar? ›

The Indian Medical Association (IMA) issued a series of demands following the brutal rape and murder of a young postgraduate doctor at R G Kar Medical College in Kolkata.

Who was the criminal in the Kolkata case? ›

2. Separate teams of the CBI also reached the crime scene at the RG Kar hospital and the barrack of the Kolkata Police's Armed Forces fourth battalion in Salt Lake, where the arrested prime accused, civic volunteer Sanjay Roy, was putting up, PTI reported.

Who was the female doctor serial killer? ›

Linda Laura Hazzard (née Burfield; December 18, 1867 – June 24, 1938), nicknamed the "Starvation Doctor" was an American quack, swindler and convicted serial killer noted for her promotion of fasting, pummeling and hours-long enemas as treatments.

What happened at NeuroScience hospital Kolkata? ›

A patient, reportedly mentally unstable, jumped from the eighth floor of the Institute of NeuroScience Hospital in Kolkata on Saturday. The patient somehow climbed out of an eighth floor window of a hospital and sat on the edge of a cornice on the eighth floor of the building where he was undergoing treatment.

Can we sue doctors in India? ›

You can sue the doctor and nursing home/ hospital under the Law of Contracts, Criminal Law, Constitutional Law, Law of Torts, and Consumer Protection Law.

What is the punishment for medical negligence in India? ›

Notably, Section 304A of the IPC deals with cases involving the death of a person due to a rash or negligent act. This provision is frequently invoked in cases of medical negligence leading to a patient's demise and can result in imprisonment for up to two years.

What is happening in RG Kar Medical College? ›

Synopsis. Kolkata Doctor Rape Murder Case: The Indian Medical Association announced a 24-hour doctors' strike on August 16 to protest the rape and murder of a trainee doctor at RG Kar Medical College. The CBI is investigating, and multiple arrests have been made for related vandalism.

What is the case of Aksoy v Turkey? ›

Turkey. Aksoy (A) claimed that in November 1992 he was taken into custody by twenty policemen after M (another detainee with them) had allegedly identified him as a member of the PKK which was engaged in a conflict with security forces for Kurdish autonomy.

Who was the killer in Dr Death? ›

In 18 months and at least three different hospitals neurosurgeon Christopher Duntsch was responsible for the deaths of two patients and maimed at least 33, earning him the moniker “Dr Death.” The Duntsch case was covered in the Peacock drama series “Dr Death” which I have already done a review on but for this article I ...

Who was the biggest serial killer of all time doctor? ›

Harold Frederick Shipman (14 January 1946 – 13 January 2004), known to acquaintances as Fred Shipman, was an English doctor in general practice and serial killer. He is considered to be one of the most prolific serial killers in modern history, with an estimated 250 victims.

Who is the doctor killer? ›

A sinister moniker

The term "Doctor Killer" became associated with the Beechcraft Bonanza (and several other V-tail aircraft) due to a series of accidents involving high-profile professionals.

Top Articles
Latest Posts
Recommended Articles
Article information

Author: Horacio Brakus JD

Last Updated:

Views: 5763

Rating: 4 / 5 (51 voted)

Reviews: 90% of readers found this page helpful

Author information

Name: Horacio Brakus JD

Birthday: 1999-08-21

Address: Apt. 524 43384 Minnie Prairie, South Edda, MA 62804

Phone: +5931039998219

Job: Sales Strategist

Hobby: Sculling, Kitesurfing, Orienteering, Painting, Computer programming, Creative writing, Scuba diving

Introduction: My name is Horacio Brakus JD, I am a lively, splendid, jolly, vivacious, vast, cheerful, agreeable person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.